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Even though Google’s Chrome OS is still limited compared to Windows 8 or OS X or even Android, Chromebooks are still attractive devices for certain kinds of users at certain price points. For those who spend most of their time checking e-mail, reading articles, writing in Google Drive or a Web-based CMS, or hopping between social media sites, a clean, always-up-to-date $200 or $300 Chromebook may be more tempting than the bloatware-riddled Windows laptops you can find for the same price—even if the Windows laptops are more capable. There are also benefits for schools and other institutions without much IT infrastructure, since Google offers device management that doesn’t require on-site equipment.

The downside for Chromebooks is that once they exceed a certain price, it becomes very difficult to recommend them. They are just the Chrome browser attached to a keyboard when you get right down to it, and they’re already competing with a bunch of inexpensive, mostly great tablets for those more casual users. Go down that road too far, and you end up with something like the Chromebook Pixel, a $1,299 anomaly that is beautiful but impossible to recommend with a straight face.

Accept, for the sake of argument, that there is some price wall at or near $300 above which Chromebooks aren’t suited to compete (Google’s own PR department trumpets their share in the sub-$300 category, so it’s not a big cognitive leap). The problem with this is that most companies to date just don’t build very good PCs at this price point. Below $300, products aren’t built to last long, they come with low-resolution, low-quality displays, they come with bargain-bin keyboards and trackpads, and they almost always look and feel like they’ve been thrown together without much regard to form or function. This is the problem that HP's Chromebook 11 wants to fix.

If the Chromebook Pixel is a response to the low build quality of cheap Chromebooks, the Chromebook 11 is a response to the impracticality of the Pixel. But let me explain.

Body, build quality, and screen

Enlarge/ The colorful IPS display is one of the best things about the Chromebook 11. 1366×768 is an automatic turn off for many, though it’s much more reasonable in an 11.6-inch display than in a 13- or 15-inch display.

Andrew Cunningham

Google says that the Chromebook 11 was “inspired” by the Chromebook Pixel, but that doesn’t mean that HP’s new $279 Chromebook picks up many of the Pixel’s features. You don’t get a high-resolution touchscreen, or a fast Ivy Bridge processor, or the great aluminum body. Instead, it feels like Google and HP evaluated what the Pixel did well and implemented those features to the extent possible without making the price completely ludicrous.

That begins with the build quality. Like the Samsung Chromebook and the Acer C7, the Chromebook 11’s exterior shell is entirely plastic, but it’s made more rigid by a metal frame underneath. There’s no creaking or flexing in the bottom half of the laptop, though the lid is definitely very flexible and wobbles a bit if you touch it. Overall the laptop feels light but sturdy, not as good as the plastic in Nokia’s Lumia phones, the 2013 Nexus 7, or the iPhone 5C, but a step up from last year.

The laptop’s look and feel is reminiscent of the white plastic MacBook that Apple used to sell, both because of its glossy finish and its rigidity. Like that laptop, you’ll start seeing hairline scratches in that glossy plastic almost immediately no matter how careful you are (a problem we also noticed in the iPhone 5C). Still, cosmetics aside, it feels like it could sustain a couple of drops without ill effect. The Chromebook 11 even improves on the old MacBook’s ergonomics by making the edge of the laptop slightly rounded so that you don’t have a hard corner digging into your wrists as you type.

Like the Moto X and iPhone 5C, the Chromebook 11 can be ordered in a few different colors because it’s “fun” and because your every purchase apparently needs to be a reflection of your personality. If you buy the white version of the Chromebook, the area around the keyboard and the slightly rubberized strips on the bottom will be red, blue, green, or yellow—the standard Google colors. If you’d like something more understated, an all-black Chromebook 11 is also available (you can get neither a black laptop with the color accents nor an all-white version). These accent colors are joined by a multicolored strip on the lid that mirrors the one on the Chromebook Pixel, though here it’s just a backlit cutout instead of the Pixel’s programmable LEDs. No Konami Code Easter egg for you.

Enlarge/ Most of the laptop’s branding can be found on the bottom in the form of a small HP logo, the standard regulatory text and logos, and a “made with Google” marking that implies that Google had some input on the way this laptop looks and works.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ The light strip on the lid is superficially similar to the one on the Chromebook Pixel, but without the cool programmable LEDs.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ Only two USB 2.0 ports and a headphone jack on this one, plus a micro USB port for charging and video output via SlimPort. Previous Chromebooks have featured SD card readers and more common video-out ports, so this is a regression.

Andrew Cunningham

The port selection on this Chromebook is a step down from either the Samsung Chromebook or the C7, both in quantity and variety. Where last year’s Chromebooks had HDMI ports and SD card readers and even sometimes USB 3.0 or Ethernet jacks, this one reduces down to just two USB 2.0 ports, a headphone jack, and a micro USB port for charging (a little more on that later). The micro USB port also supports HDMI, VGA, and DisplayPort video output via the SlimPort standard, which is supported by the Nexus 4 and 2013 Nexus 7 but not used very widely elsewhere. You may not mind much if you use your Chromebook primarily as a standalone piece of hardware, but if you like to connect it to other things, you’ll have less flexibility with this model than with others.

While the construction of the Chromebook 11 is actually pretty good for $279, the most obvious upgrade over last year’s crop of low-cost Chromebooks is the screen. On paper it’s a 1366×768, 11.6-inch screen just like the one in the C7 or in the ARM Chromebook, but while the resolution and density haven’t changed, the quality sure has.

The Chromebook 11 swaps the older Chromebook’s cheap TN LCD panels for a much better IPS display, the same screen technology that the Pixel uses. The 135PPI screen is much less dense than the 239PPI Pixel, but in most of its other characteristics—color, contrast, viewing angles—it’s very Pixel-esque. Color and black levels are especially good, and while the screen does dim a little when viewed from above or from the side, it doesn’t get washed out, and the colors don’t shift like they do on last year’s cheap Chromebooks. The biggest downside is that, like many other laptops and tablets, the screen has a glossy coating that makes it difficult to see in brightly lit environments.

Enlarge/ The Chromebook 11's color and contrast are similar to the Chromebook Pixel, but its pixel density is lower.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ Graphics on the Chromebook Pixel are obviously much smoother and sharper.

This, more than anything, makes the Chromebook 11 feel like a higher-end device than it actually is. It’s hard to forget that you paid $279 for a laptop when you’re staring at a subpar screen the entire time you’re using it, and that isn’t the case here. The panel HP is using here actually looks a bit better than the non-IPS screen that Apple uses in the 11-inch MacBook Air, a computer that costs three times as much. The general build quality, performance, and versatility of the Air is otherwise superior to the Chromebook 11 in every way, of course, but the panel comparison shakes out the other way.

Keyboard, trackpad, and speakers

If the screen is the most obvious upgrade in the Chromebook 11, the keyboard is the second most obvious. Both the Samsung Chromebook and the C7 came with shallow chiclet keyboards that were forgivable given the price, but that was the nicest that could be said of them. Like the glossy plastic body, the keyboard on the Chromebook 11 is evocative of the white plastic MacBook, both because of its white matte plastic keys and because of its good layout and key travel. As someone who has been around a lot of white MacBooks, though, a word of advice: white keyboards will eventually look disgusting. Consider this when choosing your color.

Usually there’s an hour or so where I have to “break in” a new keyboard to get used to its feel and its particular idiosyncrasies. It’s kind of like driving a rental car; everything is in pretty much the same place, but the subtle differences take some getting used to. Jumping from the MacBook Air to the Chromebook 11 to the Pixel and then back to the Apple wireless keyboard I use with my iMac took very little effort, and anyone satisfied with any of those keyboards should be satisfied by what HP and Google have done here. There are still $1000-and-up Windows Ultrabooks that come with shallow or bizarrely laid out keyboards, so to get such a usable one in such a cheap computer is an unexpected surprise.

Enlarge/ The “standard” Chromebook keyboard is slightly different from a Windows or Apple keyboard, losing the Command or Windows key in favor of wider left ctrl and alt keys and losing the numbers on the row of function keys. The Caps Lock key has also been supplanted by a Search key, but it can be mapped to Caps Lock in the Chrome OS settings.

Andrew Cunningham

As for the trackpad, Apple continues to be the only company making a trackpad that I actually prefer to a mouse, thanks to its quality and accuracy and to the many trackpad gestures baked into OS X. The Chromebook 11’s trackpad is still pretty good compared to most PCs, even though touch continues to be underutilized in Chrome OS. Finger tracking is smooth and accurate, and using two fingers to right-click and tapping to click both work just fine. The two-finger scrolling sensitivity is a bit inconsistent—the trackpad responds well to larger motions, but for lighter touches, it either doesn’t respond at all or responds a bit too enthusiastically. This is a minor gripe, though, and one that is easily adjusted to.

Like the Pixel, the Chromebook 11 stores its speakers underneath the keyboard, which both maintains the laptop’s clean lines and keeps the sound pointed up at you, but any and all comparisons to the Pixel’s speakers end there. The Chromebook 11’s speakers are muffled, tinny, bass-free, and distort at high volumes where the Pixel’s have a fair amount of clarity and range for a laptop. The speakers get loud, but they don’t sound good.

63 Reader Comments

Honestly, I'm kind of intrigued by Chromebooks and ChromeOS in general. And this is someone that's an admitted computer geek...starting off with computers since 1979 with the Apple II, then the IBM PC and it's various clones, the Amiga, the Mac, then building my own PC's and compiling Linux from source code and running it...even in the early days of the OS.

The reason I'm intrigued is that I'm a firm believer in less choice equals more creativity. Limit all the myriad of choices and distractions and I'm better creatively. Granted, this isn't for everyone...I'm only referring to myself.

But the thing is, as the article mentions, in terms of Chromebooks, there's no middle ground. There's no mid-range Chromebook. You either have the extremely cheap and low-end Chromebooks by HP and Acer and Samsung...or the ultra high-end Google Pixel. Why not like an $800 Chromebook with a nice IPS display, doesn't have to be touch-screen, just give us a Haswell processor, long battery life, decent build etc etc. As it is now, it's either very low-end or ultra-too-expensive.

I've been doing an experiment lately and everything I do has involved the browser. I can control another machine (a Plex media server) via VPN via Chrome. Along with my music service (Google All Access...but it could also easily be Spotify) and other things I do...everything is out of Chrome. Do I, personally, really need a full OS?

Can you please find someone who uses chromeos to review chromebooks? Because it is really tedious reading these reviews. It is as if you asked an auto mechanic to review macbooks. "Well it was pretty good but honestly a set of good chromium-vanadium sockets will get you a lot further."

The first hint that you might not be qualified to review these things is if you can't imagine what they are for. I will give you a hint and it isn't grandma, it's enterprise. Big businesses with tens of thousands of low level employees can hand these things out. You can just have a big pile of them by the door for people to grab one I'm the morning. In this market fewer ports is probably a major benefit. As is USB charging if the enterprise also issues phones.

Anyway seriously another viewpoint on chrome books is strongly desired.

My Cr-48 with various programs like VLC, nano, vi, and ssh would like to have a word with you. And yeah, that's on a standard Chrome OS image.

Granted, it takes some knowledge of Linux to get VLC working on it, but Vi, SSH, and some other utilities are standard issue, not even requiring a switch to dev mode.

Honestly though, my biggest gripe with this review is that somehow slimport is more restrictive than random VGA or HDMI ports on previous chromebooks. A slimport can be whatever port you need. Granted it requires an adapter, but so what. The Macbook line has needed a mini-DP to whatever you want for years now and I haven't seen a lot of complaints. It's literally the same issue too, because slimport is DisplayPort tech through USB. It may be expensive if it's the only slimport device you've got, but if you have at least one current-gen Nexus device, it wouldn't hurt to have an adapter sitting around anyways.

"The idealized Chromebook user, the “everybody” who Google is marketing the Chromebook 11 to, is someone with a Google account who spends most of their time in their browser."

"That said, I’m not so sure this person actually exiss"

Really? I wonder if you did a study of application run times and produced a graph.

Now, where do people think the browser will appear on that graph?

Of course, no-one uses the browser on their computer most of the time, no doubt the average typical home user is rendering Maya Models, or airbrushing all their holiday snaps in Photoshop, or perhaps creating a home movie in Final Cut Pro at super HD resolutions, then onwards to post production. I imagine that's how most users spend their Sunday Evenings. Certainly not the majority of a time in a Browser.

And I'm sure they're doing all this on a sub $300 PC as well. Makes sense when you think about it.

I mean, what can a browser provide to people that would make them spend the majority of their time in it? Sure, you have netflix, Hulu, Facebook, Twitter, or even Ars technica itself, but that's just a browser, and not many people spend the majority of their computing time on a browser. Of course not...

I best close mine, and pretend I've not spent the last 4 hours using just the browser.... I better open up a programming IDE right away....

Can you please find someone who uses chromeos to review chromebooks? Because it is really tedious reading these reviews. It is as if you asked an auto mechanic to review macbooks. "Well it was pretty good but honestly a set of good chromium-vanadium sockets will get you a lot further."

The first hint that you might not be qualified to review these things is if you can't imagine what they are for. I will give you a hint and it isn't grandma, it's enterprise. Big businesses with tens of thousands of low level employees can hand these things out. You can just have a big pile of them by the door for people to grab one I'm the morning. In this market fewer ports is probably a major benefit. As is USB charging if the enterprise also issues phones.

Anyway seriously another viewpoint on chrome books is strongly desired.

I mention what they're for in the very first paragraph - people with tight budgets and relatively simple needs, people who want to hand out simple laptops in schools/businesses who want to manage them without having a lot of server equipment on-site.

There are also plenty of people who can't get by with them - anyone who needs Microsoft Office for literally anything (still tons of people). People whose workplaces use Exchange. If you have iTunes or iPhoto libraries, or if you prefer IE or Firefox or any browser that isn't Chrome. It's true that you can get by without a lot of these things these days, but give a even a light Windows user a Chromebook and I'm willing to bet they'll find at least one or two things that they'll need to work around.

Browsers can do plenty of things, and I actually like Chrome OS and will defend it where many people still say "what even is the point of this, why would Google do this if it already has Android, etc." Acknowledging its very real limitations is part of the deal, though. No device exists in a vacuum where it doesn't have to compete with and be compared to other things.

Can you please find someone who uses chromeos to review chromebooks? Because it is really tedious reading these reviews. It is as if you asked an auto mechanic to review macbooks. "Well it was pretty good but honestly a set of good chromium-vanadium sockets will get you a lot further."

The first hint that you might not be qualified to review these things is if you can't imagine what they are for. I will give you a hint and it isn't grandma, it's enterprise. Big businesses with tens of thousands of low level employees can hand these things out. You can just have a big pile of them by the door for people to grab one I'm the morning. In this market fewer ports is probably a major benefit. As is USB charging if the enterprise also issues phones.

Anyway seriously another viewpoint on chrome books is strongly desired.

I mention what they're for in the very first paragraph - people with tight budgets and relatively simple needs, people who want to hand out simple laptops in schools/businesses who want to manage them without having a lot of server equipment on-site.

There are also plenty of people who can't get by with them - anyone who needs Microsoft Office for literally anything (still tons of people). People whose workplaces use Exchange. If you have iTunes or iPhoto libraries, or if you prefer IE or Firefox or any browser that isn't Chrome. It's true that you can get by without a lot of these things these days, but give a even a light Windows user a Chromebook and I'm willing to bet they'll find at least one or two things that they'll need to work around.

Browsers can do plenty of things, and I actually like Chrome OS and will defend it where many people still say "what even is the point of this, why would Google do this if it already has Android, etc." Acknowledging its very real limitations is part of the deal, though. No device exists in a vacuum where it doesn't have to compete with and be compared to other things.

Which is why you should have compared to any other $300 laptop. Compared to any other $300 laptop how fast does the browser start? What's the frame rate in Google Maps?

Of course, no-one uses the browser on their computer most of the time, no doubt the average typical home user is rendering Maya Models, or airbrushing all their holiday snaps in Photoshop, or perhaps creating a home movie in Final Cut Pro at super HD resolutions, then onwards to post production. I imagine that's how most users spend their Sunday Evenings. Certainly not the majority of a time in a Browser.

There's slight difference between "most of the time" and "all the time". In order to use Chromebook you have to be able to use Chrome all the time - there's no other way. If you use browser 99% of your time, that remaining 1% can be a show stopper, as competing devices can be used 100% of time.

Can you please find someone who uses chromeos to review chromebooks? Because it is really tedious reading these reviews. It is as if you asked an auto mechanic to review macbooks. "Well it was pretty good but honestly a set of good chromium-vanadium sockets will get you a lot further."

The first hint that you might not be qualified to review these things is if you can't imagine what they are for. I will give you a hint and it isn't grandma, it's enterprise. Big businesses with tens of thousands of low level employees can hand these things out. You can just have a big pile of them by the door for people to grab one I'm the morning. In this market fewer ports is probably a major benefit. As is USB charging if the enterprise also issues phones.

Anyway seriously another viewpoint on chrome books is strongly desired.

I mention what they're for in the very first paragraph - people with tight budgets and relatively simple needs, people who want to hand out simple laptops in schools/businesses who want to manage them without having a lot of server equipment on-site.

There are also plenty of people who can't get by with them - anyone who needs Microsoft Office for literally anything (still tons of people). People whose workplaces use Exchange. If you have iTunes or iPhoto libraries, or if you prefer IE or Firefox or any browser that isn't Chrome. It's true that you can get by without a lot of these things these days, but give a even a light Windows user a Chromebook and I'm willing to bet they'll find at least one or two things that they'll need to work around.

Browsers can do plenty of things, and I actually like Chrome OS and will defend it where many people still say "what even is the point of this, why would Google do this if it already has Android, etc." Acknowledging its very real limitations is part of the deal, though. No device exists in a vacuum where it doesn't have to compete with and be compared to other things.

Which is why you should have compared to any other $300 laptop. Compared to any other $300 laptop how fast does the browser start? What's the frame rate in Google Maps?

I'll definitely be paying a lot of attention to that in the C720 review. Just remember that the Chromebook 11 uses the exact same chip as Samsung's ARM Chromebook from last year, so basically any modern Intel system (Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge/Haswell) is going to beat it pretty easily.

Intel's MS Netbooks have left a very, very sour impression of cheap, small laptops. Another $50 and you can get a real laptop with way better performance and Windows 8. These Chromebooks aren't worth more than $100 max. Even then, I'd struggle to find a use for them. Heck, even and iPad mini can do more, looks better, and is smaller... I just don't get the market for these junkers.

Intel's MS Netbooks have left a very, very sour impression of cheap, small laptops. Another $50 and you can get a real laptop with way better performance and Windows 8. These Chromebooks aren't worth more than $100 max. Even then, I'd struggle to find a use for them. Heck, even and iPad mini can do more, looks better, and is smaller... I just don't get the market for these junkers.

My Mother probably makes a great example for these "junkers"; she doesn't need final cut pro, or photoshop, or Crysis. What she does need is a reliable way to check her bank account, look up recipes, and watch hulu sometimes without worrying about Malwarebytes and security essentials. She doesn't like touchscreens and $500 for an ipad is far higher than she's willing to pay for such a workload. It's slow and it's janky and it's severely limited, but you know what, a lot of people can get past that stuff when it's simple and cheap.

Anyway seriously another viewpoint on chrome books is strongly desired.

I mention what they're for in the very first paragraph - people with tight budgets and relatively simple needs, people who want to hand out simple laptops in schools/businesses who want to manage them without having a lot of server equipment on-site.

Browsers can do plenty of things, and I actually like Chrome OS and will defend it where many people still say "what even is the point of this, why would Google do this if it already has Android, etc." Acknowledging its very real limitations is part of the deal, though. No device exists in a vacuum where it doesn't have to compete with and be compared to other things.

Well said. I am still stupefied that schools buy iPads for kids. As an example, my son's teacher asked the kids to do up and print a summary about a sea animal. The FIRST things that got wheeled away were the iPads, because they're awful at creating most things. They brought in the clunky, heavy old laptops that didn't get upgraded ... Because the school bought iPads instead.

Now, a computer like this would be far more suitable for schools.

If you're involved with a school, please, PLEASE don't buy a tablet/iPad. It really isn't suitable.

You can if you want to; the idea is that users usually don't. That goes for more traditional OSes too. When is a Windows user accessing the underlying OS? Trying to manually fix a malware infection? It certainly is not using a browser, or installing and running a new app:

Go to a store/site/repo to find the app. Click some buttons; open something and/or say Yes (one or several times). New app is downloaded, stored locally, and appears in launcher/app menu. Run new app, which works even when offline. Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS all work that way.

Now there are some technical differences in what an app is and what it is allowed to do, but packaged apps are less restricted than web pages. You can argue the pros and cons of those differences and restrictions. But "it's just a browser" is not a legitimate complaint.

I'm waiting for the Acer Haswell Jr Chromebook. Hopefully I'll be able to unlock it, load it up with a fullblown Linux distro, and finally replace my 5yr old netbook, and finally have HDMI out and USB 3.0, and reliable HD video playback.

I don't get all the people who hate on netbooks, Chromebooks, 720P displays, and talk about how paying $50 more for the bottom of the line 15" laptop is better. When was the last time you could walk around and hold your 15-incher in one hand for an hour? How about all those times hunting for a place to plug in because your battery only lasts 3 hours? How about watching movies for 5 hours on an airplane without plugging in? Oh, can't do that either? Seriously. The only real options for a laptop are the extreme high and low ends, all the stuff in the middle is just headache potential.

For me, a Chromebook is absolutely a viable solution as a laptop. I of course need my desktop for various non web-based work, but when I'm out I usually have with me just my Android phone or at most Android tablet because I simply have no need to do those things at that time (I'm not going to compile AOSP while sitting on the bus).

I long ago moved all of my documents, music etc. to Google's services. Not because I thought their services were superior to 'desktop' solutions, but simply due to the convenience factor of having everything available to me at any location. A Chromebook to me would just be another device with a better input system to the service I already use.

Of course I totally understand not everyone can get by like that, but I'm sure there are others like me.

"Of course, no-one uses the browser on their computer most of the time, no doubt the average typical home user is rendering Maya Models, or airbrushing all their holiday snaps in Photoshop, or perhaps creating a home movie in Final Cut Pro at super HD resolutions, then onwards to post production. I imagine that's how most users spend their Sunday Evenings. Certainly not the majority of a time in a Browser.

And I'm sure they're doing all this on a sub $300 PC as well. Makes sense when you think about it.

I mean, what can a browser provide to people that would make them spend the majority of their time in it? Sure, you have netflix, Hulu, Facebook, Twitter, or even Ars technica itself, but that's just a browser, and not many people spend the majority of their computing time on a browser. Of course not...

I best close mine, and pretend I've not spent the last 4 hours using just the browser.... I better open up a programming IDE right away....

The thing is, this idea that in the next couple years all software will be server-side and run through a web browser has been around for 15 years now, rearing its head under a different name every few years- dumb terminals, netbooks, Chromebooks, etc. No matter how many times it fails miserably, it just keeps getting reinvented and thrown back out there like a tired old doomsday prophecy. Now sure, maybe at some point in the future things will suddenly change to make this kind of product appeal to more than 1% of the population, but there's a whole lot of precedent to suggest otherwise.

There is a huge difference between spending most of your time in a browser and being trapped in a browser, just as there is a huge difference between spending most of your time at home and being under home arrest.

This looks like the ideal machine for that special, recently unemployed niece/mother/cousin/friend that makes $5,000 an hour on the laptop and is wildly enthused to tell you all about how you can too in comment threads all over the Internet.

the samsung has an anti-glare non-glossy screen. is this not worth complaining more bitterly about? I find the difference between glare and non-glare to be about as much as that between IPS and a TN.

is it not worth highlighting the lack of a backlit keyboard, too. this is a big issue for night use.

I own the old samsung chromebook. I prefer chromebooks to windows notebooks. no more worries about viruses and updating. I would be glad to pay $400 for a chromebook with the HP qualities, but matte screen, backlit keyboard, and a faster atom processor. I understand that most chromebooks should not be in this $400 category, but one or two should. I have even thought about buying a macbook air and installing chrome on it, but then decided against this---too much maintenance.

The thing is, this idea that in the next couple years all software will be server-side and run through a web browser has been around for 15 years now, rearing its head under a different name every few years- dumb terminals, netbooks, Chromebooks, etc.

Except Chrome OS is going the other way: packaged apps are delivered online, but are installed locally, run locally, and are designed to be offline first.

Im not sure if I'd feel too limited having a chromebook but for my out of home use I can see it being really practical for me. Though I seem to be in the minority here, but I used to love this netbook I had about 5 years ago. I got it second hand and it was awesome to travel with. It had an amazing battery life, fit comfortably in my backpack, and was able to do anything I needed on my trips (word processing, email, Facebook, etc.) Would I do any serious work on it? Absolutely not, the screen was way too small, but for simple tasks it was perfect. I was wicked upset when it got stolen. Its too bad they are so hard to find nowadays. But I could see biting the bullet and getting a cheap chromebook down the line.

Of course, no-one uses the browser on their computer most of the time, no doubt the average typical home user is rendering Maya Models, or airbrushing all their holiday snaps in Photoshop, or perhaps creating a home movie in Final Cut Pro at super HD resolutions, then onwards to post production. I imagine that's how most users spend their Sunday Evenings. Certainly not the majority of a time in a Browser.

There's slight difference between "most of the time" and "all the time". In order to use Chromebook you have to be able to use Chrome all the time - there's no other way. If you use browser 99% of your time, that remaining 1% can be a show stopper, as competing devices can be used 100% of time.

Intel's MS Netbooks have left a very, very sour impression of cheap, small laptops. Another $50 and you can get a real laptop with way better performance and Windows 8. These Chromebooks aren't worth more than $100 max. Even then, I'd struggle to find a use for them. Heck, even and iPad mini can do more, looks better, and is smaller... I just don't get the market for these junkers.

I kind of agree. ChromeOS is neat, and I think for a lot of people it would be perfect, but the devices are just too expensive for what they are.

They need to be $200, max. Otherwise, frankly, you are better of spending another $100 and getting a low-end Windows notebook. Or even an Nexus tablet.

The issue, of course, is that it turn out that it takes quite a bit of horsepower to run Chrome and Flash efficiently. All modern browsers are very "heavy" applications, and Flash is a pig of epic proportions. You simply can't use the lowest-end hardware and have anything but a terrible experience. Maybe a few years from now, they'll have sufficent CPUs for low prices and ChromeOS will take off.

Of course, no-one uses the browser on their computer most of the time...

There's slight difference between "most of the time" and "all the time". In order to use Chromebook you have to be able to use Chrome all the time - there's no other way. If you use browser 99% of your time, that remaining 1% can be a show stopper, as competing devices can be used 100% of time.

Except you can't use the competing device 100% of the time. The technology is not there, yet. Instead, your fancy computer with its heavyweight OS is installing security updates (and then closing everything to reboot), or running a malware scan, or sending a crash report to the mothership.

The promise of ChromeOS is that the device will always be ready to give you a web browser. Even updates happen transparently in the background. And if you fit certain lifestyles, then you could certainly afford to buy a device that you can use conveniently most of the time.

I'm a bit conflicted about ChromeOS. On the one hand, I think it's great that Google is getting people out of the habit of using a vulnerable PC to store the only copies of important personal information. On the other hand, I am not pleased with Google's participation in PRISM, and Google is using Chrome to push DRM into web standards.

1) It was convertible with an Android tablet, with tablet automatically putting in a blackened border2) Larger or replaceable SSD - 128G? - ( I want the option of running Ubuntu)3) Intel based (Haswell chip)4) Google Pixel Screen and a good touchpad.

I'm hoping Asus has the sense to build an upscale transformer on this basis - it would sell.

Of course, no-one uses the browser on their computer most of the time...

There's slight difference between "most of the time" and "all the time". In order to use Chromebook you have to be able to use Chrome all the time - there's no other way. If you use browser 99% of your time, that remaining 1% can be a show stopper, as competing devices can be used 100% of time.

Except you can't use the competing device 100% of the time. The technology is not there, yet. Instead, your fancy computer with its heavyweight OS is installing security updates (and then closing everything to reboot), or running a malware scan, or sending a crash report to the mothership.

The promise of ChromeOS is that the device will always be ready to give you a web browser. Even updates happen transparently in the background. And if you fit certain lifestyles, then you could certainly afford to buy a device that you can use conveniently most of the time.

I'm a bit conflicted about ChromeOS. On the one hand, I think it's great that Google is getting people out of the habit of using a vulnerable PC to store the only copies of important personal information. On the other hand, I am not pleased with Google's participation in PRISM, and Google is using Chrome to push DRM into web standards.

This is what Windows 8 fixes though, and does surprisingly well. The metro (or whatever it's called now) side of it is really lightweight and competes well with what ChromeOS is intended to do (both have a similar lack of apps though). But it has the advantage of the desktop in the background for everything else.

Not sure where you get "vulnerable PC" and updates being an issue, Windows 8 installs updates in the background and waits until you restart, and an up to date PC is a pretty secure thing (especially if it's not running Java). Sounds like FUD to me.

I've been thinking about a lightweight laptop to use, because my work laptop fits more the description you supply. But that's because it's a 5400rpm drive that calls home to my employer and is completely encrypted, making it incredibly slow. A modern Haswell based laptop with a SSD is a pretty snappy machine, regardless of what OS you're running on it.

Why are the only benchmarks for this laptop against a $1300 machine? Where's the comparison to a $300-400 windows laptop that this is being marketed as an alternative? I get that Ars doesn't seem to like ChromeOS that much but give it a fair shake. This is just a shoddy review...I expect better from this website.

The thing is, this idea that in the next couple years all software will be server-side and run through a web browser has been around for 15 years now, rearing its head under a different name every few years- dumb terminals, netbooks, Chromebooks, etc.

Except Chrome OS is going the other way: packaged apps are delivered online, but are installed locally, run locally, and are designed to be offline first.

Fantastic. We've been hearing this for years too. Next someone will come tell us about the wonderful off-line functionality that HTML5 provides, right? (Functionality that is hardly ever used in the real world, btw.) The thing is, once you unplug ChromeOS or one of the other comparable schemes from the internet, you are left with nothing but an ordinary laptop that is limited to web APIs instead of the far richer sets of APIs available in modern operating systems such as Windows and OS X or even iOS. Of course you can fix that by writing or using a proper OS, but then you are back at square one- ie. not a Chromebook.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.